In March or April of 2005 I will be starting a program to teach prepardness to residents in my local community. I am hoping to get the local police, fire, EMS, local industry, and volunteer organizations involved. I work for the county health department as a public health preparedness planner. Part of my job is this public outreach and education. The other part consists of developing contingency plans for the health department and the community. For my plan to educate the public I want to put a small PSK into their hands. I have considered having the following gear to put into their packs:
Whistle
LED squeeze light
Small first aid kit:
AMK pocket medic style case or Ziploc type bag
Bandaids
Alcohol wipes

I don’t believe I can go much farther than this do to the fact of liability of handing medicine out (ie. Tylenol) or school safety (ie. matches, lighter). But I do want to put information into their hands and give them something to take away that will prepare them. My constraints are obviously budget and willingness for the community to accept what I am doing.

My goal is to promote preparedness, and to educate the community. In addition I am assisting my county emergency manager in setting up a civilian emergency response team (CERT) and a medical reserve corp (MRC). If you guys can give me any advice on how to develop my program and/or some other cheap ideas or suggestions for the kit or how to get stuff for the kit I would appreciate the input.

Thanks,

Jeremy

What a great idea! At least it might get people thinking, which puts them WAY ahead of the rest of the herd.

Sue

If people are attending your seminar freely you have an interested audience. Giving out a kit is a small but tangible connection with the education. I would add a suggested list of additional items and resources. Those truly committed will no doubt be on this forum in 6 months arguing the merits of some survival sword.

Sounds like a good deal Chris, how about a small list with contact numbers and meeting places ?

Dave

You might contact the insurance industry. They may be willing to fund some of your training. You allow them to hand out trinkets with their name and logo in return for funding, training space, or materials. Some insurance companies have training programs with multi-media they may provide for you.

Alternately think about other industries in your area that would be willing to donate supplies, materials or other products for the advertising. Maybe the local army/navy store would donate some chem lights for your kits if you mention additional prepardednes supplies are carried by that store.

Two ways to work the local merchants. They provide free or reduced cost product for the kits you are handing out in return for free advertisting. They agree to offer follow up workshops that highlight their products in return for funding your kits or products for your kits.

Places like camping supplies, militrary surplus, home improvement, food warehouses, gun shops, knife shops, outdoor clothing, etc. Lots of supplies are carried by local merchants. Get them involved.

As already mentioned, supply a list of vendors who carry supplies in your area as well as a Suggested Packing List for a 72 Hour Kit, or Home Preparedness kit.

Thanks for the response so far. Good idea about the insurance companies. I also forgot when I did the original post to ask for website suggestions other than ETS because that is already a given. I wll provide lists and will probably provide pamplets from American Red Cross, Ready.gov, and DHS. I am planning to take this into the schools more than likely elementary maybe middle. The younger kids always seem to be interested when they see something cool or hear about it. Also if I can get the little guys (and girls) to go home and nag mom and dad to read the stuuf and put together a kit then I am making progress. I am also planning on reaching out to the elderly and hispanic and asian population in the area. So now i have a real hard learning curve to deal with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to work with the kids. And again thanks for the suggestions.

I would suggest some sort of water purification, probably Iodine based. If we are afraid to recommend this based on medical fears, then what good is it to prepare? Hey, maybe you'll get sued--and maybe lives will be saved.

There comes a time to go out on a limb--comments anyone??

Regards, Vince

Edit: My apologies if you were asking about preparedness solely for children. Anytime you are dealing with kids you must be extremely careful about dispensing chemicals of ANY sort--especially if parents are not consulted beforehand. My initial reply referred to adult-directed kits only.

In response to your question on how to work with the kids, I'm sure that there are plenty of parents on this forum who have taught their own children basic skills, so they should also have plenty of suggestions.

I've taught kids (fine art and drama), and I've found that having activities that promote participation from your audience is a great way to get them interested and absorb the information, especially if they're little. Role-play and getting them to act out scenarios makes it more fun for them, and it's also kinda like practice. Really engage the kids in the presentation by getting them to raise their hands and answer questions. Children also tend to respond well to a cheery sense of humor.

If you have any friends who are cops or firemen or anyone in a snazzy uniform who can supplement your lecture, kids really dig that, too. (I did when I was little, but maybe that's why now I can't resist a man in uniform <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Sometimes hearing the serious stuff straight from a uniformed authority figure can make a deeper impact. Being honest about the reality of things might scare them a little, but then they are more likely to discuss it with their parents later. That's my experience from bringing in the cops to talk about strangers to the wee ones.

And be careful with packaging the whistles - if there is no packaging or plastic barrier, the young children unable to resist playing with the whistles may interrupt your lecture (if passed out beforehand), or drive the classroom teacher insane (if passed out afterwards).

Good luck and thanks for doing your community a favor.

And you know how everyone here wants to know what everyone else is carrying...

Why not prepare some stuff, from the Altoids tin to the car kit? You could take it out of the container & explain what each thing is for. Or even just laid out like some of the posters here do.

Also, the local Mormon (LDS) churches put on programs like this every year. They might point out some interesting facets.

Sue

I would rethink the iodine recomendation. Thyroid issues and iodine allergies are very common and iodine can have severely detrimental and even fatal effects on such people. I would stay away from chemical treatments all-together just as youre staying away from handing out Tylenol. Water purification is great. Explain the benefits of boiling water instead of handing out chemicals that can cause illense or death.

You are assuming the ability to boil water. Chemical treatment is valid and should be discussed.

Discuss Iodine as the vast majority of people can use it safely and its cheap. Chlorine based treatment is the other option.

Water is such a huge priority not teaching all the treatment options is doing a disservice.

Flip

I am assuming nothing. I am fully aware that boiling water may not be an option and I do believe that all options relevant to the audience should be "discussed". I am also not stating that chemical treatments should not discussed but rather that samples should not be handed out just as medications (even aspirin) also should not. Perhaps I was not clear before. Hopefully this clears things up.

Rather than simply hand out the stuff, take a leaf from the Scouts: "Tell-Show-Do" Have the items there and coach them through assembling the entire thing. Even better if they have to "fabricate" part of it, such as winding a little duct tape around a piece of label backing or something like that.

Agreed... Also of course it must keep it relative to the audience. Obviously youre not going to show 5 year old kids how to start fires. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Not if you want to be invited back anyway. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Besides, these days you'd be brought up on child abuse charges a month later when one of them burned their finger. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

FEMA has a kids section.

When I go looking for additional "Preparedness" sites, I find two basic kinds. There are commerical sites that may offer some information but are mainly interested in selling products. Or there are sites that are more "Survival" vs. Preparedness related. Survival sites tend to think more along the lines of wilderness survival and not much about Home Preparedness. Usually there is volumous discussion about guns. There seems to be a "My pile of guns is better than you pile of guns" along with "You have the wrong kind of gun" disscussion. Weapons have a place in preparedness but often the other areas get overlooked.

Finding information about preparing your home for a 3 -14 day emergency is difficult to find. The CERT program teaches good information along the lines of basic first aid and very basic rescue. Not much information about preparing your home. CERT assumes you are basically fine and normal and are offering help to less fortunate. Great if that is the case but we are still looking for how to keep ourselves safe and protected.

American Red Cross and FEMA both have 72 hour kit lists. Both leave out knifes, guns, and defensive stratgies. FEMA has PUB305 about how to build a hurricane/tornado shelter which is excellent building source. I believe it indicates to get a 72 hour kit but goes no further.

http://www.survival-center.com/ Captain Dave's is a commerical site but has very well written articles about preparing. His site is not extreme and should not scare most people new to preparing. He has also realized that after the first 72 hours are covered, it boils down to food programs.

http://theepicenter.com/ The EpicCenter has some good articles and is also a commerical site. Newbie friendly.

http://beprepared.com/ Again a commerical site but PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. friendly articles.

I have yet to find a good web site that really starts new people out with a plan. I would say a good home plan would start with at least one 72 hour kit with growth into a kit for each family member. Alternate Heating, Shelter, Water, Sanitation, and Food are the areas to be discussed. It seems the most difficult is the Food Storage and Rotation program.

A food storage and rotation program seems to be the component that is the real separater. It take disipline to create a true food storage and rotation program. A weeks worth of canned goods is easy for most to pull together. More than a month of food and you have to learn how to bake bread from scratch, and really learn how to cook. You have to plan ahead and it takes more effort than most really want to put towards preparedness.

Some sites try to make a years worth of food easy by selling a years worth of food in 5 gallon buckets for a couple of grand. More money than most people want to fork over at one time and it does not really take into account your varied taste preferences and eating habits. The most common story are the Y2K people who bought the food and 2 yrs later donate a buch of it to charity.

Sensible things like storing duct tape, sheet plastic, roofing nails, and a hammer to repair holes in the roof or windows after a storm is needed. Due to the recent build a plastic room to fight against chemical attack overshadows the usefulness of plastic and duct tape as a storage item.

Storing human powered tools is overlooked. Try and find a brace and bit today. Who owns a hand saw? People will spend $350 on a chainsaw but not store any gas. A $15 bow saw and $3 replacement blade would just clutter the garage and rust.

Lists abound on the web of people who wrote down every possible thing they could think of they might need if Y2K really happened. Most start with a lengthy list of guns and ammo, followed by a generater, and a HAM radio setup. Next is a list of food that goes on for pages. Seldom to you find any information about proper sizing and use of a generator, with the exception of Epic Center.

I digress. Good Luck.

Tom Brown's Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival

Tom Brown has a reputation for wilderness survival. Some swear by him, others swear at him. The above book is a good starting place for new people who are not interested in wilderness survival.

Resqman:

Is Tom Brown the guy who once stripped naked before walking into the woods and then lived in the woods for a fairly long time making whatever he needed?

Bountyhunter